Sometimes the online world reveals unsuspected parallel dimensions. This is an unknown restyle of Neural independently (and secretly as we never knew about it) made by NY-based Motion and Graphic Designer, Clarke Blackham. Very nicely made, perhaps only a bit glossier for the magazine’s line, it testifies once more how even your most familiar outcomes can have another life somewhere else.

The value of craft after software sounds rampant sometimes, expressing the freedom of escaping repetitive taps and clicks to accomplish some assumed tasks. Mixing media, electricity, electronics, mechanics and inert objects Graham Dunning has realised a structured track/performance/open script in his “Mechanical Techno: Ghost in the Machine Music.” More than a proof of concept a machine music declination.

Isn’t ASCII Art a perfect form of “graffiti” in 2010s? The 8-bit aesthetics is among the strongest visual references connecting the analogue recent past with the omni-digital present, so why not adopt it to finally have some public art embedded in the present? In Varberg, Sweden, 2016, the GOTO80 crew (feat: Karin Andersson) did it, choosing (not by accident) the Mo Soul Amiga-font.

The relationship between Andy Warhol and personal computers (becoming quite popular during his last years) has been only partially investigated beyond his Amiga works. In November 2015, Sotheby’s sold his “Apple (from Ads)” (acrylic and silkscreen ink on canvas) for 910.000 USD, and in catalogue’s notes Warhol tells about his meeting with Steve Jobs insisting to give him one and showing him how to draw (even if still in black and white): “we went into Sean [John Lennon’s son]’s bedroom–and there was a kid there setting up the Apple computer that Sean had gotten as a present, the Macintosh model. I said that once some man had been calling me a lot wanting to give me one, but that I’d never called him back or something, and then the kid looked up and said, ‘Yeah, that was me. I’m Steve Jobs.’ And he looked so young, like a college guy. And he told me that he would still send me one now. And then he gave me a lesson on drawing with it. It only comes in black and white now, but they’ll make it soon in color…I felt so old and out of it with this young whiz guy right there who helped invent it.”

Minority Report comes closer… Three huge screens at Birmingham New Street railway station are scanning passers-by and play advertisements accordingly. http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/new-street-station-advertising-screens-9920400

Transmediale 2007, Unfinished

The edition 2007 of Transmediale, festival for art and digital culture, entitled Unfinished opens on 30th January at the Akademie der Künste in Berlin. It’s the 20th edition of the festival formerly known as Videofest. After the 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006 editions Andreas Broeckmann will direct his last one. He did an excellent work in the past years, building up one of the world major festivals of digital culture, mediating institutional requirements and all the different souls (including the many obscure ones) of this cultural field. Is the title ironically referring to his work, too? We never know, but the new artistic director will be probably announced during the opening and rumours are that he’s a well known person in the field, already familiar with the festival and one of the ideal candidates to take over the Broeckmann’s work. Three keynotes will take place this year: ‘Fractal Flesh’ by Stelarc, ‘Born Again Ideology’ by Arthur Kroker and ‘The Finality of Algorithms’ by Friedrich Kittler. Amongst the usually crowded panel list: a history of the Infermental international video network, the open source political game Bordergames platform, a four hours conference on ‘Whatever happened to tactical media?’, ‘Mediascape in Iraq’, presentation by David Rokeby of his works, the Greenaway’s project ‘The Tulse Luper Journey‘, artists dealing with the much-hyped Second Life platform and ‘Media Art Undone’ on the so liquid ‘media art’ concept with Miguel Leal, Diedrich Diederichsen, Inke Arns, Olia Lialina (interviewed on Neural 25) and Timothy Druckrey. Two books presentations: ‘Book of Imaginary Media’ by Eric Kluitenberg and ‘Networking, The Net as an Artwork’ by Tatiana Bazzichelli (presented with Gaia Novati and Jaromil), and a couple of promising performances: The one made by the Orchestre Méchanique, and ‘Specification.Fifteen’ by Taylor Deupree and Richard Chartier. The artworks running for the awards are Tim Shore’s ‘Cabinet’ video, Herman Asselberghs‘ ‘Proof of Life’ installation and Antoine Schmitt whole work. At the Club Transmediale at Maria Am Ostbanhof, beyond the many live and dj sets there’s a generative visual piece by Marius Watz (‘Illuminations 1.1), a workshop and live by Lab[au], the reacTable by Sergi Jordà, Marcos Alonso, Günter Geiger and Martin Kaltenbrunner, and a screening of ‘Essays on Radio: Can I have 2 minutes of your time’ released by Cronica. And as every year many unofficial events are also happening in the city, but the word of mouth is still the only way to discover them.